Some of the parking barriers at Ballantyne Village in a June 2014 photo. All parking spaces in the deck and surface lots will be open for use by visitors to the center, “effective immediately,” according to a statement from Ballantyne Village’s new owners, Vision Ventures and Mount Vernon Asset Management.
Diedra Laird
dlaird@charlotteobserver.com

Some of the parking barriers at Ballantyne Village in a June 2014 photo. All parking spaces in the deck and surface lots will be open for use by visitors to the center, “effective immediately,” according to a statement from Ballantyne Village’s new owners, Vision Ventures and Mount Vernon Asset Management.
Diedra Laird
dlaird@charlotteobserver.com

Long-running Ballantyne Village parking dispute draws to a close

The long-running battle over parking spots at the Ballantyne Village shopping center has come to a close.

All parking spaces in the deck and surface lots will be open for use by visitors to the center, “effective immediately,” according to a statement from Ballantyne Village’s new owners, Vision Ventures and Mount Vernon Asset Management.

Blockades in front of the spaces will be removed, and legal actions by both companies have been dropped, the two companies said.

Through a spokesman, the two companies declined to disclose the terms of the transaction.

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“Increasing the available parking will make visiting our property more convenient and enjoyable for shoppers and patrons, while helping to increase business for our tenants,” the companies wrote in a statement. The agreement, the companies said, will free up the former owner, Bob Bruner, to pursue his other development plans.

The dispute dates back to October 2013, when Ballantyne Village was sold to new investors for $26.1 million. Bruner, the former owner, retained ownership of three parcels of the property through his company, Ballantyne Village Parking LLC, including two parking lots and a three-story parking deck connected to the shopping center stores by a pedestrian bridge.

Bruner had kept the lots closed while exploring how to develop them for other uses. And to keep shoppers out, Bruner had used fences, planters and eventually metal poles called bollards to block access to the surface lots and parking deck.

Lawsuits against the former owner over the past year escalated the dispute, and customers and business owners alike complained that they can't find enough parking and that the dispute between rival owners hurt business.

In the statement released Monday afternoon Ballantyne Village’s new owners said they will also announce “new tenants” and “major capital improvements” to the retail property “in the near future.”